My heart sped.Lionsgate?I counted forward and backward, trying to figure out when House Lionsgate came east. Sorrel, that rat, had dropped me in at one of the most dangerous parts of the story. At least I knew where Ironclaw was.
“It sounds like they need us,” Jerrald said.
Indeed, the man that gave the rallying cry gave a strangled shout and, as we emerged into the sunfire clearing, I saw why—an arrow sprouted in the thick meat of his neck. His horse went wild at the smell of blood and ran, tipping him off to the ground. No one seemed to notice but me; they were all focused on keeping their heads on their shoulders. Blood drained to my feet and I paused, trying to understand what I was seeing.
I spied the tawny banners of Lionsgate and, there, the gray of Badgerden, which my good host was making for. I stopped in my tracks.Badgerden? They were the bad guys!
Or rather, they were the morally gray clan that had been mistreated in every political alliance Ironclaw fostered, essentially forcing them over to the dark side if they wanted to have any chance of survival.
But for all intents and purposes, they were the bad guys! I couldn’t fight with them. What if Ironclaw saw?
I cut right, intending to lose my host and find the Lionsgate nobility. I’d watched a few videos about sword fighting. I could get through this.
A donkey laden with packs flew by, screaming.
Someone grabbed my wrist—a man, now shouting in my ear, “Whom do you serve?”
“Let go of me!” I kicked at him.
“A woman! What are you doing here? Never mind. I’ll get you to safety at the—” He never told me where safety was because the arm that had grabbed me came clean off. I shrieked and beat the dead limb away, then looked up at the butcher, tears streaking down my cheeks. It was my Badgerden guard, Jerrald.
If he was disturbed at just having cut a man’s arm off, he didn’t show it.
“Are you sure you’re a knight?” he questioned.
“It was a ruse, goddamn it!”
“Oh.” Jerrald looked abashed, then tugged on my arm, and we spun out of the way of what looked like a suit of armor running at full tilt.
“You’d better get that ready,” he said, gesturing at my sword hand.
I lifted the dagger, now seemingly ten times shorter than it was in the woods, and held it aloft in front of me. Jerrald straightened my elbow with a glare that told me what he thought of my knife skills. Then they were on us. I couldn’t fight Lionsgate but the man facing me seemed not to care. He was out for bloodlust and grabbed me by the neck.
I felt everything I had ever known tumble out of me. My name. My cat’s name. The fact that Sorrel had doomed me the moment I met her. All I felt was the squeeze around my neck as I looked into the whites of his eyes. Instinctively, I swiped his way and the blade bounced off his leather pauldrons. I brought my knife up again. The hilt hit him in the nose and I felt a crunch.
He dropped me to the grass. Someone else kicked him in the back of the knee and I crawled doggedly away, dagger in hand.
I kept crawling until I came to a sizable boulder and ducked around it. A moan emerged, and there I found a page or a squire. He was a boy, his panicked expression mirrored mine, telling me this was his first battle as well. I must have looked a likely enough protector because he lunged at me, wrapping his arms around my waist. We both cried, sniveling away behind the rock, as the battle raged.
The fight must have faded, for a voice cut through the fading sunlight.
“Omar?”
The boy stiffened in my arms. We both stood slowly. On the other side of the rock, Badgerden soldiers were looting the Lionsgate bodies and digging trenches for their own dead.
“Jerry!” Omar screamed, and ran into my guide’s arms.
His leather jerkin was slashed in one place and his black cornrows shone with sweat. He wrapped his arms around the kid’s shoulders and let the boy sob.
“Jerrald,” he confirmed to me, as if he didn’t like the idea of me calling him Jerry, then took a moment to push Omar back and look him over. Satisfied Omar was unhurt, Jerrald turned his attention on me. “I talked to my liege lord about your cause. We’ll take you with us to Castle Creneda where the queen’s military host is gathering.”
My heart dropped. Castle Creneda? Sorrel was hardly leaving me with any of the good bits. What about the Feast of Gods or the Diamond Tourney? Someplace swoony and romantic where Ironclaw and I could disappear behind a tapestry? As soon as the thoughts came, they disappeared.
“Wait, why would Badgerden be going to Castle Creneda?” I put a hand over my mouth. “To attack?”
“Of course not. We’re treasured allies of the queen.”
That wasn’t right.Lionsgatewas a treasured ally of the queen. Badgerden was to fight on the side of the Dark Mage.
